The National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone data isn’t legal, a federal appeals court said just weeks before the law the government used to justify the program is set to expire. A three-judge panel in New York held Thursday that the program goes beyond the authority granted by the Patriot Act, a law passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that expanded government surveillance and data collection. A lower- court judge had said the program is legal. The appeals court didn’t rule on arguments raised by the American Civil Liberties Union that that the program violates constitutional free-speech guarantees and protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The judges also declined to issue a court order blocking the program as Congress weighs changes to surveillance laws.

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While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA's collection of Americans' telephone records, impatient civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts to limit government surveillance powers.

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(AP) The National Security Agency says it is reviewing its decision to allow a top official to work part time for a cybersecurity firm that is pitching its services to the financial sector. NSA’s chief technical officer, Patrick Dowd, was ...

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(AP) A federal appeals court has expressed concern about the government’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ telephone records. The judges are questioning whether it could be extended to bank and credit card records as well. Questions about the scope ...

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Supreme Court justices found more common ground than usual this year, and nowhere was their unanimity more surprising than in a ruling that police must get a judge’s approval before searching the cellphones of people they’ve arrested.

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A bipartisan Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has unanimously adopted a report that endorses some of the National Security Agency's Internet surveillance programs.

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A federal judge raised privacy questions while dismissing a lawsuit filed by an Idaho woman against President Barack Obama regarding the collection of cellphone information by the National Security Agency.

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The Obama administration has failed to turn over documents under public-records requests detailing still-secret court orders about the scope and legality of National Security Agency surveillance, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court.

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National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden says giving the Pulitzer Prize in public service to those who reported on the U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance efforts is “vindication.”

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The Supreme Court on Monday declined an early look at a constitutional challenge to the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records, instead allowing the dispute to work its way through the usual lower-court process.

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